


we walked at the edge of the sea

by threelions



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Self indulgence, Slow Burn (ish), Somebody dies/not everyone lives, [drunk Scottish football fan voice] Marines! Marines! Marines!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25907227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threelions/pseuds/threelions
Summary: Hartnell watches him, saying not a word."You were right, then," Tozer says, rapping the butt of his gun against the bottom of the deck to distract them both. "It's a hell of a lot of ice."
Relationships: Cornelius Hickey/Sgt Solomon Tozer (adjacently), Thomas Hartnell/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Comments: 18
Kudos: 25
Collections: The Terror Big Bang 2020





	we walked at the edge of the sea

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Art by the lovely [Lee](https://lee-sch-mch.tumblr.com/)!! <3 Who was not only a delight to work with but gave me FAR more beautiful arts than I deserve  
> 2\. Big big thank you 2 the wonderful [sabs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets) for giving this a read ily <3  
> 3\. I have NEVER in my LIFE OVERTHOUGHT a fic like THIS  
> 4\. disclaimer: historian floundering out of her time period, pls forgive for inaccuracies  
> 5\. CREDIT to the following for helping me stay in period voice (I say 'stay', I mean 'attempt'): Goodbye to All That, Temeraire, To The Lighthouse, Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility, Tolkien's Unfinished Tales
> 
> [ this is the part where i have to move stuff from the footnotes up bc as always i have run out of space ]
> 
> 6\. [title](https://memoryslandscape.tumblr.com/post/175304460848/we-walked-at-the-edge-of-the-sea-the-dog-still/amp)  
> 7\. thx [building terror](http://buildingterror.blogspot.com/) for fun nautical terms and [this](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTerror/comments/8cuom8/death_order/) for dead ppl  
> 8\. [spoilers] I tried to follow canon to the letter please enjoy these [illegible handwritten notes](https://tomhartnell.tumblr.com/post/151829573631)

Hartnell's staring out into nothing again. 

It does put Tozer somewhat ill at ease, the seaman's penchant for looking at things that a normal fellow cannot see; Mr. Blanky is particularly adept at this, spinning stories from scores of ice that would have looked the same to any other man. Tozer thinks that things ought to be visible to be believed. It would be a bad Marine what giving in to superstition and hearsay. 

Now Hartnell seems a decent fellow, although Tozer has never had much cause for talking to him; a word on the watch, when supper came; that was all. But he's always seemed the dependable sort, not easily rattled, so the queer rigidity to his shoulders tonight marks Tozer with a mounting discomfort, even as the dog barks in the distance and Strong makes some remark about the wind.

"Take your wigs off," Hartnell says suddenly, removing his own cap. 

There is wind sure enough; it whistles in Tozer's ears something strange, though he's heard it near every day of his life. It is a feeling that seems to wash through all of them, that roots itself unwelcome in their bones, even as Hartnell requests the spyglass that Lieutenant Irving had handed to Tozer for the night's watch. 

"Just don't drop it," says Tozer, fishing the heavy object out of his pocket, metal cold to the touch. "It belongs to Lieutenant Irving." 

"Put a thumb in it," Hartnell replies, in a tone to which Tozer cannot confess he takes with particular pleasure. 

The seaman sets off on a brisk, near reckless climb up the ropes, his person getting less and less visible the further he ascends into the dark. "Be bloody _careful_ with that," Tozer shouts, cupping his hands to his mouth, but no erstwhile acknowledgement from Hartnell returns; and he jams his cap back on, stares sulkily upwards. Christ, he thinks; all seamen are idiots if ever he saw one, climbing things they can't bloody see.

Though Hartnell's eyesight seems to be better than Tozer gave him credit for. _Wake Mr. Blanky_ is called down the ropes, and Strong clatters off to fetch the ice-master. Hartnell comes down swift as he'd gone up. "What was it?" Tozer asks, pocketing the spyglass that Hartnell hands back to him in otherwise undamaged condition.

Hartnell fixes him with a look. "Ice," he says, and it is only a question of jurisdiction that Tozer does not tack on a day of duty owing for the tartness of the comment.

*

Blanky comes, and the captain is immediately sent for, the furtive voices an inkling of the seriousness of the problem. There is more scaling of the masts, an exercise that Tozer cannot condone as being particularly intelligent regardless of the ranks of whoever does it. Hartnell, still besides him, seems to infer this attitude and gives him a wry grin.

"You get used to it," he says. 

"Only if you do it," Tozer points out. "You'll not see me up there on your life." 

The response serves only to heighten Hartnell's sense of amusement, which Tozer finds in equal parts aggravating and commendable. 

"Scared of heights, Sergeant Tozer?" 

"I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you, Mr. Hartnell."

Tozer is capable, on occasion, of adopting a tone which brooks neither argument nor further pursuit of that which encouraged the tone in the first place. Hartnell lapses into silence, although presently picks up a different thread of conversation, as if he finds it necessary to say something in order to ensure his continued breathing.

"Looks like we'll be stuck in it for some time yet." 

"Stuck?"

Though they had already wintered once it still throws him off to be hemmed in by the flat, solid ground as if they had never sailed here in the first place; as if they had simply sprung from the earth and were now trapped where they had been born. If they were to take all the time they have spent in the Arctic, last winter till this one, it seems as if they have barely moved for the ice. He thinks of what he told his sisters: years at sea. 

No. He thinks of his sisters.

Hartnell watches him, saying not a word.

"You were right, then," Tozer says, rapping the butt of his gun against the bottom of the deck to distract them both. "It's a hell of a lot of ice."

*

Like on Beechey, although no one says it aloud, and not to Hartnell's face. 

Tozer had known John; not well, but enough to be sorry for his loss, and having been one of those to do the digging it was a certain kind of knowing impossible to put into words. It had been hard going through the ice underfoot. Harder than the cabin boy's had been, perhaps more so that it came but three days after Torrington and in the dead of winter. To be fair John had been ill a long time. When Tozer had seen him at death he had lost so much weight he looked a ghost. 

Hartnell had only moved to _Terror_ after his brother's death, so Tozer had not seen much of him until then. On the occasion he had come across Hartnell it was in the sick-bay, and he liked not to remember that much. It had been a point of conversation with the men; after all no-one else had a brother aboard, so there seemed some special sympathy for the two, and when John passed it went quickly around how tender Tom had been putting his own shirt on the body.

Tozer imagines hacking through this ice instead. This hard, land-like ice, so solid it's almost unimaginable to think of the water below them, not the shale that the snow had disguised on Beechey. 

They call another watch. 

He dreams that night of the same; digging, six foot deep and bottoming out, when his shovel strikes something in the ground. He drops into the hole to have a look. It is a coffin, blue lined in white, the same produced by their carpenters. As he watches an ungodly rotten hand pushes open the cover with an aching slowness. He remembers, even after he wakes, the Marine red of the sleeve.

*

Time crawls. There is nowt to do but darn holes in socks and shirts; his Marines without enemy or prey are all but out of a job, and sailors are hardly much more useful without water. Tozer runs watches and has his men clean their rifles till they gleam, though there is nothing to shoot at. No birds and no animals. Only the long, unyielding dark that seems at any moment ready to quench their shivering little lamps.

He asks Hartnell about it, once or twice, since Hartnell would know better than he. When this winter will end. When the ships will move again. "Ends when it ends," Hartnell says, which is the kind of information Tozer would like to think he could have gleaned on his own.

The sun, when it comes, is a welcome respite for them all. One forgets what day means without it; one takes candlelight and lamp oil to be the replacement of that which cannot truly be replaced. When the rays first spill over the prow of the ship Tozer is on the watch, and he closes his eyes and tilts his face towards the glow as if he could take all the warmth it had to offer.

*

It is more activity than he has seen in months; it seems as though every single soul on board has only just woken having slept through all of winter, and slowly are all coming alive again. The call for lead parties goes out. Sir John stands over the map and draws his finger in three directions. Tozer and Bryant work it out between them – a Marine will go out on each, to the south and east and west, and Tozer grips his rifle whilst others rush up and down stocking the boats. Watching, waiting, as he has done and as he will do.

By the time the men have themselves gotten ready the sun is well up in the sky and everyone is milling towards the boats, the movement something splendid, something reminding him oddly of the first day they had set sail. There it had been cheering crowds and well-dressed men of the Admiralty; here it is only Fairholme clapping Gore on the back, Bridgens pressing a well-thumbed book into Peglar's cold hands. 

He thinks to make his rounds also. Hedges will go out with Le Vesconte; there ought to be no worry there, an able Lieutenant and Marine both. He has perhaps less confidence in Hodgson, who while well-meaning can sometimes ascribe more virtue to the 'gentleman' portion than the 'officer'. By virtue of this he has put Heather with the Lieutenant to help things along somewhat. Heather is a wise old head on steady shoulders and there are few people Tozer trusts more, if at all. 

He is also the most merry person Tozer knows, and smiles good-naturedly upon seeing him. "All right, Sergeant." There's a taut excitement about his face; sitting around waiting to be deployed in an occasional punishment did not a Marine satisfy. Tozer claps him on the shoulder, exchanges a jocular bet on whether Hodgson will first use Greek or Latin in a remark which he is sure to win.

Bryant is the last of those going out. He has drawn the best lot of the three. Gore is a fine man, the sort you would think scarcely nothing would faze, and indeed Tozer has nothing for Bryant but to wish him good luck and safe travel. 

Hartnell is to go out with the same party. He stands slightly off to the side, looking around him at the bustle, the expression on his face one that Tozer cannot place. It takes a minute for him to realise that John ought to have been here, waving his brother off. 

Even after all this time. Tozer adjusts the grip on his rifle strap and walks over to the lad, who looks up as he approaches. "I hope you'll find something, Mr. Hartnell," Tozer grins, marvelling at the rapidity with which Hartnell's features rearrange themselves to return to his usual good cheer. "Be it help or a way out of here." 

"I hope so too, Sergeant. The sooner we leave this place the better we'll all be for it." 

The thought of a sip of beer in a pub springs unbidden to Tozer's mind. He shakes his head to clear it and Hartnell looks at him askance. 

"Watch that you don't do anything stupid," he says instead, the same as he'd tell any of his Marines. This makes Hartnell laugh for no reason Tozer can discern. 

"I'll try my best, though I can't guarantee anything." Hartnell taps his noggin. "S'a bit hollow in there sometimes, I find." 

It draws a smile from Tozer but before he can agree the call goes out for the men to assemble; there are cheers that must be given and words that must be said. Tozer lines up alongside the other Marines staying behind, cues the less-rhythmically inclined on the hurrahs. The boats and the men take an age to vanish over the horizon. As a mark Tozer keeps his men there, himself facing south, until he can no longer see a shadow amidst the snow.

*

*

They lapse after this into what they had been doing all along, though every action now is charged with thought of the lead parties. What they might find out there; what they might not find; what they might bring back. The monotony of the chores leaves all the more time for speculation. With Bryant gone out Tozer must also watch for the Marines on _Erebus_ and he accepts the added responsibility with relief, a way to take his mind off the taut anticipation of return.

Lieutenant Hodsgon is first back. Pushing past the scores of hat-wavers Tozer finds Heather ruddy-cheeked and well, pleased at his having won the bet though hardly best pleased at having trudged eleven miles for nothing. "Just ice all around," he tells Tozer, and this elicits a memory of a similar thing Hartnell had once said; what was it? Ice. Ice and nowt else.

It is Le Vesconte next and Hedges's report is more of the same. "Ah," Tozer says, nothing else coming to his mind as worthy of utterance. The mood seems to sweep across deck; slowly the initial euphoria of the returns is wearing into the stark realisation that they are alone. 

The night is unyielding. Gore's party ought to have been back by now. On the middle watch Tozer pulls at the strap of his rifle, shifting from foot to foot to keep himself warm. Ice seems to him the same as ocean in the moonlight. 

*

"Solomon," says Heather, "they are back." 

Tozer looks up with a start. There is something in Heather's voice, and not only that he has called him Solomon; they have known each other long enough that Tozer can tell when Heather is on edge. 

"What is it?" he asks. 

Heather shakes his head. "You had better come." 

With a muttered curse Tozer reaches for his coat and follows Heather abovedecks, across the ice towards _Erebus_ , where a crowd of men have gathered along the gunwale. He catches a glimpse of the returning party moving up the ramp to the ship, spies amongst them Hartnell and Bryant, but sees nothing of the party's leader. The look on the faces he does see is disquieting, to say the least; he has only seen Hartnell look like that once, and that in the sick-bay aboard _Erebus_ with his brother; Bryant wears an expression partway between a grimace and a strange, unquantifiable hollowness.

They carry something with them. Tozer cannot make it out, but it seems like a person, the way they handle it. And someone else following – Tozer draws a sharp breath at the sight of the sealskin hood, the kind worn by the local people here. What face below the hood he cannot from this distance see. 

"Bryant," he calls in the sharp, clipped tones used on the parade ground. Bryant's head snaps up in an exceedingly queer fashion, as if he had just been startled out of a dream. He takes leave of the others; no one seems to notice, focused as they are on moving whatever it is belowdecks. As he approaches Tozer sees that he is red-cheeked and holds his rifle as if expecting to use it at any moment.

"It was a strange thing," he says. 

*

So Gore dead and another dying. Bryant had only got so far before being hailed back to the ship, the captains wanting to talk to everyone who had been on the party. But he had told enough, Tozer thought grimly; Christ, it was a bad situation all round, not least that Bryant might have killed a man without meaning to. Regardless of man or intention it would do the Marines no good in the eyes of the sailors.

He and Heather sit across each other in silence. By now the news has spread and no one seems much for talking. The stuffiness gets too much for him; he stands up and goes back outside, where it is cold and darker but he is alone in his thoughts.

Or not alone; over the ice he sees someone coming towards him from _Erebus_. Peglar, then, or Morfin or Hartnell, come back from questioning. Tozer moves slowly toward the gangway. It is the latter's face that presents itself to him, tight-lipped and drawn. He stops when he sees Tozer and a look of uncertainty flashes across his face. 

"I was sorry to hear about Lieutenant Gore," Tozer says.

Hartnell stares another beat, then seems to struggle to say anything at all. "Me too, Sergeant." 

"Bryant told me some of what happened." Tozer wonders a moment whether to press the subject, but he is curious, and he thinks – with not a little hint of vanity – that should Hartnell be looking for someone to talk to he would not mind himself. "Not all, though. He hadn't time to finish before he was called to report to the captains."

A flicker of a smile passes across Hartnell's face; he has guessed at Tozer's intentions. "I hope he had enough time to tell you how scared I was of the bear that I thought it was tracking us, at least." 

The dryness does not go unnoticed, but Tozer is for once glad of it. It makes Hartnell a little more like himself. "If we're going to kill it we ought to know everything we can about it," he says, a little stubbornly. 

"Are you?" Hartnell quiets a moment. "It'll be awful hard to kill. It must've torn Lieutenant Gore right apart, there was so much blood. All we found was his rifle too bent to use." 

"The Marines will set it right." Tozer smiles a little, trying to assure the man. "There's a reason our gun-drills are the best in the navy." 

"Come off it," Hartnell scoffs, the colour rising back to his cheeks. "You'll be telling me you're the best shot there is next." 

"What of it?" 

At this Hartnell shakes his head and laughs. It is nice, Tozer thinks all of a sudden, to talk with a seaman sometimes; there is different conversation to be had, or jokes to be made. The same with Strong and one or two others, although they tend to be less cheeky than the upstart next to him on the whole.

They walk in silence along the deck. 

"And the girl?" Tozer asks. Bryant had at least had time to tell him that. It was no small matter of intrigue. 

"I asked after her." Hartnell bites his lip. "They said she was his daughter. The man who died, I mean."

"A shame." 

"Yes."

After which Hartnell says nothing more, and Tozer suspects he's not thinking about the girl. The next watch is Tozer's anyhow; he stays on deck while Hartnell goes below, and damn if his head doesn't keep making out a shadow of something on the ice, something that cannot be there at all. 

*

He strings the rats out neatly, not one for half measures even if this measure will soon be gone down the throat of a brute. There are nineteen of the bait and four of them, or twenty-three total if you look at it that way. His hand hangs a moment in the air on the end of the line, before a shout from Bryant summons him quickly back to where they are stood in the blind. 

"Did you hear anything?" Heather asks, drawing the curtain to let him in.

"Nothing yet." Tozer puts his rifle to the side to rub his hands together. It is hardly warmer inside than out, although at least the wind lets up around his ears. 

"We ought to go after it," Bryant says. "If it doesn't come to us." 

"Oughtn't we to leave it alone?" asks Lawrence, from _Terror_ and the only non-Marine in the blind. "If trouble doesn't come to us then we shouldn't go looking for it." 

There is a crack outside. They start a moment, Tozer's hand going to his rifle; eyes and muzzles both are trained on the rats before them, the freshly-spilt blood reddening the snow. He is at once apprehensive and impatient. This bear, or whatever it was, must have torn Gore to shreds, such was that Hartnell told him, an able and armed Lieutenant who would have been on guard. 

Another crack, then comes Sir John's voice. The release of tension in each of the men's faces is palpable as they pull their rifles back, even in Bryant's. Tozer reaches for the flap to allow Sir John and his party entry.

Which comprises the captain, Goodsir, and one of the seamen from _Erebus_ ; his name Tozer cannot remember, a Biblical name of the Mark or John sort. They have brought along a camera with them. More importantly they have brought rum.

And it is like this, frozen for what Sir John deems posterity; their bellies warm with a fine drink; good cheer that would not have been misplaced on a gentleman's hunt in an English estate; any doubt growing further distant with each strong word, each breath of confidence; that they are found out. 

There is no crack this time. Tozer knows now it was folly to have expected any sort of warning. But _now_ is too late – Bryant vanished, screaming, the pause, the reappearance in two parts, the oaths and the sudden silence. The rats untouched. 

"Get back," shouts Lawrence. Tozer squints upwards at the cliffs. They had pitched the blind against a shelf of ice, and it had seemed that nothing could have gotten up there, least of all a bear, if it is a bear at all.

Something above them moves. They all four of them loose their rifles, twice, thrice, but it is merely an exercise in futility; there is a cloud of smoke and mist, and when it settles there is nothing there. Then without a sound and in such a flurry that there was no scream something snatches poor Lawrence stood at the far end, the bent rifle all that is left of him and uncannily similar to Gore's being dispatched. 

They give it another volley. Pockets of ice burst into splinters from the musket balls, and suddenly now they can see the white shadow that continues to come at them. "Fall back," Tozer shouts, keeping up his rate of fire as best he can whilst moving backwards amidst the ice. From the corner of his eye he sees that the man from _Erebus_ has fled, as have both Goodsir and Sir John. 

Then, again, silence. "Do you see it?" Heather asks. As quick as it had come it has disappeared. Somewhere farther off they can hear Sir John calling for his ship. Tozer shakes his head no, though indicates that Heather ought still to keep his guard up and his eyes open. 

A shout, all of a sudden. Not just any shout – it freezes both Marines in their tracks, so bone-chilling and desperate it is. It is a shout Tozer has heard too many times since his first engagement in Spain. Once they had had a man too wounded to move and all he had done was lain there, bleeding out and screaming.

Christ. Tozer hopes to God that someone aboard has sense to call for the other Marines still on the ships. He beckons Heather towards the sound of the shout, and then they are both moving quick and steady on the ice, blood coursing through Tozer's ears as loud as a drum. There are no more calls of _Erebus_ and he has a nasty, sinking feeling in his stomach as to whom the cry might have belonged.

"Faster." Now they can see the second complement of men who've left the ships and are likewise headed towards the call. They are racing, racing. _Now_ is too late. There is a startling shock of red in the snow just ahead, reminding Tozer of the rats' blood just moments before, and beyond that he can make out the site where Bryant's man had been put down the hole. 

Tozer arrives in time with Captain Crozier's group, past the limb lying on the ground like a cut of meat and following the sweep of crimson to where Captain Fitzjames is on his knees. Yes, then. He feels his stomach turn, a stomach still full of rum that had been given him by a man who was now dead. Yes.

Crozier is giving orders. Only now does Tozer realise he's lost his cap, as has Heather; the cold sets about his head to make it ache, but he nods at Crozier's instruction and keeps his voice steady as he speaks to Little, more from training and adrenaline than anything else. "Bryant was killed and Lawrence taken. There's Goodsir and one of _Erebus_ 's men to be accounted for. If you would, I'll keep Hammond and Pilkington here, send Heather with a group to fetch Bryant, and the rest can look." 

"Yes," Little says, still sluggish with shock. Tozer nods to Heather, who sets immediately back off towards the blind, then signals a group to follow him. They work slowly, checking every crevice or cranny in which a man might hide or have been put, fanning further out to cover more ground, though never in less than a pair for want of encouraging the bear to attack. 

"You all right?" says the man with him. It takes a moment for Tozer to realise that it's Hartnell. His face is pale but his brow is set and there's no uncertainty in the way he holds his rifle.

"As right as I can be," Tozer replies carefully, not wanting to think about it now. If anything he should be more concerned about Hartnell; the lad's got no business coming out on the ice so soon after what had happened to him, and how affected he had been by it. Even now he must be thinking of Gore and for good reason. "You shouldn't be here."

"I should, the same as anyone else." Hartnell juts a stubborn chin out. "Lawrence was a friend of mine." 

Of course he was. Tozer should have realised; Hartnell is an easy man to make a friend of, charming and cheerful, and he gets along with everyone famously when he isn't being a wilful nuisance. And to be fair to him such tendencies only seem to come into play with a few people, Tozer, unfortunately, one of them.

"I'm sorry," he says now. "We might find him yet." 

So they look, and keep looking. First Goodsir and then the Erebite are accounted for, but Tozer cannot make good on his hope for Lawrence. It is an hour later that they return to the ships cold and silent. There are things to be sorted out and Tozer leaves for _Erebus_ almost immediately on fetching a new hat.

Belowdecks he speaks in low tones with his men in the most removed of moods, focusing only on the practicalities of the men of _Erebus_ now that Bryant is out of it. _Out of it_ , he thinks again, wondering at that phrase, as if Bryant had only sustained a musket wound he would soon recover from and was not lying in two parts 

Morfin lifts his voice to song. The Marines fall silent and Tozer folds his arms across his chest, looking downwards. He has lost a Sergeant and they have lost a Captain; it is no comparison to make, and better that they had not been in a position to make it, but here they all are. _Farewell all joys_ . Only now does he allow himself to remember that it was he who had asked Sir John to stay. _O death._ Only now does he think of Braine. _Come close mine eyes._ He closes his eyes.

*

Donning full uniform they return to the ice, Tozer conscious that his rifles are as much for protection as they are for salute. Crozier reads an eloquent eulogy which needed no qualification as to its original author; Sir John's easy, and touching, grasp of language was recognisable to anyone who had served under him. After which Crozier catches Tozer's eye; the new Captain and the new Sergeant. Tozer turns his head and raises his eyes.

Afterwards they are allowed a small, private funeral for Bryant. It is hardly as grand as Sir John's and there is no salute, though they died much the same way, and though Bryant was there of his own volition, an uncharitable thought which Tozer allows to pass quickly. They are eleven left of thirteen Marines who had set off from Greenhithe. Nine soon ere the relief party Crozier means to send out. He is under no illusion as to the threat to that number that their positions on watch or on sledge parties poses, not while the beast remains out there.

But they will do whatever is asked of them, damn it. They will do it, and he will have to see them through.

*

Life changes very little, after. If there are any reports to be made he makes them to a different captain, but otherwise the same routines are held. The watch, the mess, the hammock. They see no more of the bear, for which they are all quietly grateful; thoughts of revenge aside they would be hard-pressed to argue for another blind when the first had failed so terribly. Tozer had spotted the girl camped near them on a sledge party and made mention of this to the officers, but there being no established link between her and the brute they had decided to leave it be, whatever the whisperings and gossip.

Neither of the ships move an inch during the summer except upward. If there are any leads they do not want to be found; Tozer reckons he has covered a hundred miles and still seen no crack nor sliver of water. 

The sun dips back below the horizon. 

Strong has his birthday and Tozer is first to knock him down amidst the strains of _he's a jolly good fellow_ , levity that disguises the poor form of having a party frozen out here. Tozer himself has had two birthdays ere they left England, both in the dark and very dull indeed had it not been for the extra whiskey that Heather had procured with a provenance they were content to remain in ignorance. 

It's the best they can do, really, rolling on the ground and laughing; it will take their minds off everything else for a time. Tozer lets up only when Strong cries relief, then cuffs his head with affection and reminds him that just because it's his birthday it'll not mean skipping his watch. No less than three men had, in truth, offered to spell Strong for today, but the lad had refused to hear anything of it. A sound kind of fellow, and that. Tozer dusts himself off and heeds Daly's call for a fourth card player, trouncing them all before his turn on deck.

The first dog watch is the best any man can draw, what being comfortably between meals and not too late that would make sleep difficult. They are midway through the two hours and Tozer has half a mind on the extra grog at Daly's expense when there comes a great, tearing noise, so suddenly breaking the quiet that he flinches.

It rings in his ears, that sound, then and long afterwards. When he turns and fires he does so only at the shadow of something disappearing over the gunwale. And there's hardly a point to it; he sees Heather on the ground and knows not what to do or say. There is a catch in his throat he finds difficult to circumvent, in any case. He hears footsteps behind him. Everything is like a dream, a dream where he is marching steadily through the fog, left-right-left. He feels himself dropping to his knees, placing a cold palm on Heather's chest. There is breath still. He finds this both impossible and expected.

More footsteps, voices. He lifts his head; the Captain is beside him; he turns unseeingly towards Armitage who stands above them; why stands he so?; they ought to bring Heather below. Yes. He sets Heather's head down and touches his hand a moment, then calls a name to take the watch. Five men are they who lift Heather up. Lord, William, I'd told you to lay off the pudding. 

Something else is shouted as they move off. Strong? A familiar kind of name. A sound kind of fellow. 

Down the ladder they take Heather, a task made difficult by its necessitated delicacy, but Tozer's hands have never been more steady than in that moment, caked with blood though they are. 

*

They must ask him out of the room.

*

They are clustered round the table, four red coats in a sea of blue, and he feels anger bubbling in his throat of the sort that would choke him if he were to force it down. "What the bloody hell do people think that means?" he hisses, knowing the answer; feeling it in the room. Thieves and murderers pressed into service for want of a jail sentence. He's served fourteen bloody years and has yet to see a man shirk his duty or leave another behind. Fourteen years and Heather by his side always. First in line, he says, feeling a prickle in his nose, first cut down. 

He has more grievance to air and would have had Daly and Hedges not been called to the watch. Two more of his men, nine of thirteen. They heft their rifles without complaint or thought that what had happened to Heather might also to them; he is damned proud if no one else will be. 

As he shifts to allow them passage he sees Hartnell looking hard at him; he had been sat behind them and must have heard everything, since Tozer had not bothered to lower his voice. Tozer meets his gaze. He's got nowt to be ashamed of. 

"Seamen have died too," Hartnell says quietly, though his voice is low enough that the two boys he sits with know well to take their leave. 

Yes; and Strong a friend of his lost now on the ice. None of them compare to Heather, but Tozer has not the words to explain this. " _Send in the Marines_ ," he mutters instead. "You man the ships, Mr. Hartnell, and leave the dying to us."

It's unfair on Hartnell and Tozer knows it. Worse still he doesn't care a jot. He can see Hartnell squaring his shoulders, a red flush across his face, and thinks: I could take you down in a second, boy. 

"None of us asked to be here. We don't seem to be the ones harping on about it."

"I'll thank you to stop talking now, Mr. Hartnell, afore you make things worse." It's all he can do to keep his voice civil. 

Hartnell seems to have no such trouble as he says, slowly and deliberately, "I'm sorry about Heather, Sergeant." There is nothing in his tone that could be taken for impertinence and yet it hits Tozer as would a blow to the jaw. He finds his hand in a fist and slams it against the table. By now there remains no more idle chatter to interrupt. 

"He's not dead yet," he says, and stands. 

*

In the tent away from the mess he looks down at his hands. They have lost all steadiness gained in that moment of carrying Heather down. He raises his right to his eye and watches it shake with fury, or fear, or despair, or something else entirely. These hands that have held rifles and colours and the guts of dead men on more battlefields than he can remember and here in the dead of the Arctic night they are trembling like leaves. These hands that have held Heather's. He cannot lose another one. He will not lose another one. He knows he would lose himself. 

*

When Hickey asks his question Tozer answers, but only because he had thought no man mad enough to search blindly in a blizzard like this. And he is thrown by Strong, besides, his frozen face and the _o_ his mouth makes, and the head they had shaved not hours ago. 

He waits with the halves till an officer can be reached, Crispe having gone to fetch one and Hickey going, he says, to see if Crispe needs no extra help. It's Little who comes up – Tozer says nothing to this – and Little who arranges for transport to the good doctors, neither of whom Tozer envies. He has Paterson for an extra man on the watch and stays with them awhile before going back downstairs. What silence there had already been in the mess hangs heavier now, like a black cloud draped over them all. He looks around for Hartnell, not sure what he means by it or what he would say, but the lad has gone and Tozer can assign him no blame for it. 

Word filters slowly through that the other half had belonged to Evans. "Christ," mumbles Pilkington over from _Erebus_ , hardly the sort to blaspheme lightly. Tozer looks cautiously up at him across the table; he can ill afford a bout of nerves at this point. Pilkington's boyishness that does him favours with mothers ashore curries him none here, the flush at Tozer's gaze making him look like a child been told nightmares. 

"Sergeant!" comes a cry off toward the ladder. 

Unmistakably Hedges and clearly urgent, and Tozer growls and retrieves his rifle, wondering how many more times he'll be called this way. No good can or will come of it. 

Up the ladder and into the tent, where some sort of commotion rages; men are shouting all sorts, some fisticuffs going on at the far end; Tozer attempts a call to order but short of firing his rifle it seems nothing will keep them bloody quiet. He's almost driven to opening fire when Crozier does it for him. 

It's the girl. With all heads of the men down Tozer can see her clearly from where he stands, her brow furrowed and lips drawn. When Hickey stands Tozer remembers with a start his question, but that's nothing to the surprise of Hartnell getting to his feet.

He takes a half-step forward without realising. Thinks the better of it then and shuffles back, though no one's noticed what with their attentions engaged by the scene afore them. The girl. Hickey. Hartnell. Manson. And he who had told them where. His fault as much as theirs, or worse; his carelessness. He likes not to be careless. 

The girl to be made comfortable on _Erebus_. Hickey. Hartnell. Manson for questioning and the rest to the lower deck. There'll be payment wanting for this, sure as Crozier's face is dark.

Irving finds him later. "There is to be a lashing," he says, his voice inscrutable, "before the ship's company as soon as Mr. Johnson has gotten the cat ready. We would have four of your men for the guard."

Tozer has only four men left. Irving knows this, surely. The last of his men to string Hartnell up to bleed; Tozer knows not why he thinks of this, but the thought stirs in him something awful that he breaks from Irving's gaze and cannot rejoin.

"Put Wilkes on the drum," he says. 

*

It goes worse than he thought. And he has seen his share of whippings, took part in them as a young'un with fixed bayonets and a conscious avoidance of the offender's gaze. No avoidance is possible here, stood as he is in plain view with the captains. The undisguised whimper of Manson is to be expected, though no less terrible to hear. Hartnell bears his with a resignation that ascribes him a strange dignity. Once he looks straight at Tozer, who sees the tremble of his lip as he does the determination to hide it.

Hickey's is unwatchable. Something must have happened in the interview – he'll not say, nor will any of the men with him, but that price is here extracted to the farthing. It is unwatchable and yet Tozer cannot look away, transfixed as he is by the paleness of Hickey's arms against the wood, the way he turns his head to look at Crozier. Whatever he'd done short of mutiny or murder it couldn't have warranted this.

No one speaks a word through it, excepting Crozier's command, harsher with every repetition. Again. _Again._ A terrible thing, to hear his voice against Hickey's round, wide-eyed, unblinking gaze. 

He leaves, later, small packets of tobacco in each of their hammocks. There's not much to it, but comfort is scarce aboard these ships. And insofar as he hadn't cared for Hickey a little warmth couldn't hurt amidst all this cold. 

*

The weather turns somehow for the fiercer as they inch closer to Christmas, which by this point has nearly become nothing more than a memory. No trees; no presents; no family, since the pair of siblings had had only the first year together. Tozer remains on _Terror_ with the dozen or so men who had not taken up berth on _Erebus_. And with Heather who wakes not, no matter anything that Tozer says.

The thing stays away which is just as well, since they've lost half the strength needed for watch duty. It's this shortfall has them on double rounds and forced to put up Hartnell and Manson earlier than the doctor would have liked. Hartnell, at least, makes no complaint of it; on the round Tozer shares with him he's cheerful as he ever was, seemingly bearing no ill will to any of the characters what caused the whipping.

"I was a fool," he says simply when Tozer finally broaches the subject. "Shouldn't've listened to Mr. Hickey. He told me Captain Crozier would thank us for it, and I wanted to do right by him." 

"I didn't peg you for one to leave your post," Tozer says. It's a clear night and the wind's died down some, no small respite from the neverending squalls that've lost one or two men their toes. "Damn near gave me a shock seeing you stand up."

"Why, Sergeant? Concerned for my health?" 

Hartnell's tone is teasing but his gaze is not, and Tozer finds himself unable to reply. Why indeed? He's fond of the lad, and sorry for him sometimes, what with brother and friends dying left and right. He might be the loneliest man on the ship, might be Hartnell, at the end of the day; and Tozer could not say he liked to see it. A man should have his mates.

"Anyway, you're the one told Mr. Hickey where to find her." 

Now Hartnell is definitely teasing, though it's nothing to joke about. "Put a thumb in it," Tozer growls, causing as much delight to Hartnell by use of the phrase as regret to himself. "If I'd known I never would've said – " 

Hartnell does something odd then; he stretches over and puts his thumb on Tozer's mouth. His skin is ice-cold and chapped, so it's not altogether welcome, but neither is it _un-_ welcome. The thought of which Tozer cannot make head nor tail. 

He makes no sudden movement, only stands there, confusion running riot through his head. Blast it, but it's been years since anyone's touched him like that. Neither hug nor scuffle. Something quiet. 

"You'd best follow your own advice here on out, Sergeant," Hartnell says, moving away as sudden as he'd drawn close and shoving his thumb back into his coat. "Thanks for the tobacco."

He'll not meet Tozer's eye for the rest of the round nor be drawn into saying anything, just disappears down the ladder when the hour's up. Belowdecks Tozer finds himself putting his own thumb where Hartnell's had rested. And he wonders, a long time, till he tires himself out from thinking, as any Marine is sometimes wont to do.

*

Hornby dies and Heather still will not wake. The doctors can tell him nothing; it's a miracle he should be alive at all, so they all say, as if he ought to be happy things stood as they are. Yes, he's glad for the miracle. But he prays for another one all the same.

They're firing the six-pounder up on deck. It's to do with science and he's not an expert, but he tells Heather what he knows of it still. He'd like the sound, would Heather. Was always fond of guns and suchlike, and if he'd put half as much effort into practice as he did puddings he would have matched Tozer easily for aim.

"Do you remember," he asks now, himself thinking of the crag-faced women in stifling dark, the fellow large as a horse, his real name something slipping Tozer's mind. "Where's he right now, do you think?" Falling in the thick somewhere in Chatham, most like. But that Heather were there also. Never mind himself; just Heather in Chatham or still on the _Regent_ , spinning awful grand yarns for the young 'uns who'd watch him wide-eyed, doddering about somewhere unexciting. Just that.

He marks the footsteps behind, Hammond come to get him for the watch. "I'm ready to go up, Private," he says, not looking round. There's one thing more he would try. 

When Hammond's footfall fades Tozer takes up Heather's hand and squeezes it, watching Heather's face, the wax that seals his eyes to jarring effect. Move, William, he thinks. I'll feed you all the pudding you like. By God, please move. 

*

It's a bitterly cold deck greets him as he climbs up, wind and snow and fuck knows what else assailing the walking, talking lumps of cloth already gathered. He comes to the cannon, where Hodgson is prattling on about the clavier and fingers. They'd all like to keep their fingers, mind. Hartnell's loading the cannon and it's impossible to catch his eye under these conditions, but Tozer suspects he'd not have succeeded even if the sky were blue and the sun out. Hartnell hasn't said a word to him since that day on the watch.

He moves on towards the bow where Darlington's stood, in a mood it seems by his chatter. Hickey using his wounds as excuse to shirk duty and all sorts. Tozer had been carrying Hornby down the ladder and heard Goodsir's instruction; hardly a thing to ignore, assistant surgeon or no. He has nowt to say to Darlington, which the man takes as invitation to continue. 

They go through the tent. It's long since been repaired but Tozer can't help pause at where the tear had been, where Heather had lain. His eyes still open. All he has to do is open them again.

In this way it's Heather that saves him, for Darlington pulls ahead in the pause. And Darlington who screams, and Darlington who lies rumpled on the ground as if a ragdoll tossed to the side by a petulant child. 

Tozer starts. He's no time to aim; he puts a foot wrong, and the thing is right with him; he stumbles backwards, has only presence of mind to shout that he's coming through, the rest coming to him in gasps. It took – he's dead – the tent not so much collapsing as ripped apart from inside. Over the gunwale! A ruffle of fabric. A sudden settling. Tozer peers over the ice and can see nothing; Golding shouts this as if it would be of any help. Their heads swivel on Blanky's voice, the thing once again a step ahead, coming from their flank. 

It's clever, this. Like an army all on its own. 

He motions the men back. But it's bloody hard to see a thing in this blizzard; there couldn't've been a worse day for it. He moves cautiously forward, rifle rested snug in the crook of his shoulder, finger pressed to the trigger. This is what he knows, though the circumstances be slightly altered. A one-monster army is an army still. Hammond behind him. A third to his right. No one has yet seen it; he's sure Golding would have something to say.

A shout, a shot – he turns early enough to see the third man's rifle suspended in the air, late enough that his shot is into the brown. Christ, but it moves faster than any beast of its size ought. Every chance Tozer has taken has been late, and he hadn't told a lie to Hartnell; he's the best shot here. Where is it? – off the ship? – where's it gone? – he calls to Hammond. They'll have to go after it. Hammond tumbles over the gunwale with little grace, and when Tozer reaches the private he finds instead a twisted ankle.

"I've no fucking time for this," he growls, Hammond moaning something of an apology. They pack ice on the ankle; at least there's much of that to be had that makes the task easy. Then he tells Hammond to lie still, but keep his rifle close, lest the thing should come round and he be in position to surprise it. A bullet would do nowt to it, he's certain of that now, but it may well give it a scare.

They're shouting back on the ship. He gives Hammond a pat and climbs back up; there's hammering at the forward hatch, and Hodgson bringing up the cannon with the men. Of course. Would that Heather were here. He keeps alongside them as they carry it to the fife rail, rifle poised as if he could see anything to shoot it. Blanky along the foremast somewhere, so he's alerted now – the creature can climb then. He thinks, absurdly, of watching Hartnell scale the verysame mast, of climbing things they can't bloody see. 

Where Is it? – where's it bloody gone? – they're all of them waiting, for the cannon, for a target. No sight of Blanky, shrouded as he is in the sleet and fog. Tozer feels himself tense, his fingers tingling, his cheeks seared by cold. All they need's a sign.

"There!" 

Hartnell who gives the word. They cast their eyes whence he points; there's a burst of fire marking what must be the creature. "Two inches!" Hodgson calls. They’re pulling the cannon up; it's not half quick enough; the flame's so far away from the mast they seem along the yard now, and that'll not support the weight for long. "One inch!" Not quick enough. He sets his rifle to the deck and his strength to the cannon, jamming his palm against the barrel to prop it up. It's the oddest thing – as if putting his hand to a stovetop, in the middle of the Arctic – when he pulls away he cries out as his skin does not move with him. The whole of his hand blood now. He takes up his rifle still. A job to be done. The thing. "Fire!" Goddamnit, _fire!_ The fuse lit; the flame falling; a great shout; Christ, yes, the thing is hit; Hartnell's hand on his shoulder; a mad rush forward. 

Blood in the snow, but no sign of either body. So not even a cannon will put it to rest. "It's run off, sir," Little calls from distance, and turning they can see the tracks that lead away from the ship. Blanky found dangling from the yard. All the spirit seems suddenly to rush out of Tozer; blood in the snow and on his hands, again; he feels his legs beg to give out under him. And Hammond still around the other side to care for.

"You're hurt," says Hartnell. 

They're going up to cut Blanky down. He wonders why Hartnell goes not with them; he seems to like that climb well enough. "So's Mr. Blanky," he says. "Private Hammond. And Darlington's dead." 

"Yes," Hartnell says, with some impatience, "but you're hurt." 

"It's only a flesh wound," he says. "Go back aboard, Mr. Hartnell." He ought to fetch Hammond. He gets to his feet – when had he knelt? – and Hartnell fixes his arm under his own, awful steady. 

"There's other Marines about. Come on."

Awful stubborn too, so it seems. Grudgingly Tozer signs Daly and Hedges to look to Hammond, then follows Hartnell back aboard. The lad's got the sort of brow that marks him always worried about something or other, but it's especially prominent now. He bids Tozer wait in the sail room while he fetches something. Tozer registers a half-hearted protest that he'll not take orders from an AB, but it's warm belowdecks and quiet, the silent and untouched canvas making for better companions than the hubbub outside. 

It might be five minutes or fifteen ere Hartnell returns, armed with material. "They're busy with Mr. Blanky," he says by way of explanation, setting down the lantern and pulling up a chest to sit opposite Tozer. "Mr. Goodsir gave me these. Says I've to wash the wound before dressing it." He pats his knee. "Let's see it, then."

"You're a right authority," Tozer mutters, though gives his hand over. Hartnell rests it on his thigh and goes about the work as if he knew what he were doing, though it may only be the general competence that he seems always to exude. If the first sensation were odd then this, his hand resting so delicately on another, is all the stranger. Tozer keeps his gaze on Hartnell through the ministrations. The carefully kempt moustache, the head of blond hair different from his brother, falling about his eyes. He's all of what – twenty-five? – handsome and a life of his own ahead of him yet.

Hartnell looks up then. Even by the candlelight Tozer can make out the faint red of his cheeks, colour which had not previously been there. "All done, Sergeant," he says, but his tone of voice is changed now, quiet where it would have been impertinent.

"Thank you," Tozer replies, though makes no move to withdraw his hand.

They sit for some time like that. Neither saying a word, neither averting his eyes. At last Hartnell moves his hand to cover Tozer's. It is the action's excruciating slowness, its deliberation, that makes Tozer break his stare away and hold his breath till skin connects. His fingers feel the same as it had on the watch. And Tozer thinks the same as he had on the watch; it has been so long, so long, since last he had been held like this. 

He closes his fingers around Hartnell's hand. Since last he had been liked, or loved. He brings Hartnell's hand to his lips. There can be no mistaking the look across Hartnell's countenance, or how he does not pull away, and if fault lies with Tozer for not questioning this then he accepts the blame.

"I'm following my own advice," he says. 

*

They pass Christmas and the new year with pudding and what warmth they can garner. There is no Heather to steal him wine for this year's birthday and anyhow they seem in bad taste since Strong's had ended so, but there remains comfort in a quiet singsong and a drink. 

If the men mark increased cheek which Hartnell shows their Sergeant, or that they stay a touch longer out on deck during their shared watch, they make no comment; it is not theirs to make, and in any case many of them are as guilty of it. Whatever _it_ is – holding and falling asleep on each other sometimes. At least Hartnell asleep and Tozer listening to the sound of his breath, watching the flutter of his chest. Running a hand through his hair. 

He's long since given up attempting a definition, although something like arrangement might have sufficed. They are all lonely, he reminds himself. Hartnell especially. He comes with Tozer to feed Heather some of the pudding Mr. Diggle served up and sits at a distance watching. Perhaps it reminds him of two years past. 

Wake up, William, he thinks. I've much to tell you, and things to ask.

The carnivale is announced the day after new year's to much excitement; the Marines are not immune to it, no less than three men suggesting they all go as knights. Tozer tells Hartnell this, who laughs; "I thought I'd go as a lion," he says, "so that's handy. You can put me on your shield."

"I'll have you over my heart instead," Tozer returns, meaning it for a joke, though when it comes out it sounds not like one, nor does Hartnell seem to think it is. 

On January Fourth Hartnell touches Tozer's shoulder and motions yonder north where Beechey is. His face is tight with emotion obvious enough for Tozer to see in the dark, and he leans over the gunwale and laces his fingers together. Hesitantly Tozer puts a hand to the small of his back and rests it there. 

"If you'd like to talk about him." 

Hartnell stirs after a pause. "Yes and no. I've never really – talked about it. Only thought." 

"I've enough sisters to know that feelings are generally better voiced." They had taught him many other things too, and he dwells a second on them, what they must be doing at home. "Did you become a sailor to join your brother?" 

This draws a smile. "Oh, no. I joined up first, as it happens. My family were all shipbuilders in Chatham. I thought there'd be more adventure in the being aboard than building." 

"One of my ships was built there – the _Prince Regent_." It's a nice thought to have, what that came before and how they're all linked in one way or another. 

"I was a year old ere they finished her." Hartnell discloses this to make Tozer feel old, he's sure, and he elbows the lad in retribution. They laugh, and Hartnell continues presently, "I served with Lieutenant Gore on the _Volage_ and made AB long afore John. I s'pose he was a tad jealous."

"Of you?" Tozer casts a critical eye. "There's nowt to be jealous of." 

"Do you not care for my winning good looks now, then, Sergeant?" 

"I'll not give you the satisfaction of an answer." Though Hartnell's right, of course, and knows it. "Was this your first voyage together?"

"Yes. He said we'd do everything together here on out, so that I wouldn't outstrip him again." Hartnell shakes his head. "I – I gave him one of my shirts, just before we buried him. I stitch my initials on the shirttail – I thought that way something of me'd always be with him."

Tozer raises his hand from Hartnell's back to his shoulder and pulls him close. It's awkward going, Hartnell being half an inch taller and that, and he likes it more when they're laid out and height matters not so much, but Hartnell leans into it anyways.

He turns and tilts Hartnell's face to his. He prides himself on shooting more so than kissing, but again there's no complaint from Hartnell, only compliance; only a slow, lingering thing, somehow more tremendous than all that came before.

*

*

For some reason Armitage is much help in their procuring of costume such that even Heather gets a crown, all of them having unspoken agreed to bringing him to the festivities. Hartnell says that Armitage had wanted to be a Marine, an aspiration in which Tozer is wholly willing to indulge given it being the right idea. "I'd never want to be a Marine," Hartnell asserts. "You can't breathe in 'em coats." He worms his hand under Tozer's jacket, less proof than cheek, and will not stop till Tozer distracts him southwardly. 

Another five men are needed to bring Heather to carnivale, and they've soon arranged their little corner of knights and kings; Tozer has made good on his having a lion for a crest, just as Hartnell has made good on his own costume, complete with a hideously large headpiece that Tozer wonders does not strain his neck, though it does fit him perfectly. A charming, charming look. Tozer does not tell him this, but Hartnell must discern it from his eyes, for he winks and makes Tozer clear his throat. 

Soon there's light about the whole place and it feels almost like a pub, the jostle of men, the raucous shouting, the food the cooks have done their best with. They've set Heather upright on the pretext that if he were attending the party he ought to attend it properly. Armitage has assumed the responsibility of feeding him, and Tozer watches it awhile, the movement of his hand on Heather's throat. He thinks he will take Heather out tomorrow when the sun rises; it may yet do him good, or jolt him somehow.

"A toast to Bryant and Braine," Hedges says.

They raise their glasses. 

"A toast to the death of the creature," Daly says.

They raise their glasses. 

"A toast to grog," Pearson says.

They raise their glasses.

Warmed by food and drink they begin slipping away to catch other friends or enjoy the dulcet tones of a drunk Lieutenant Irving. Tozer sits with Heather still, carrying out a one-sided reminiscence of Spain and Gibraltar. Hartnell joins them in a moment, his cheeks burnished red, a look that suits him if Tozer will not tell him for it going to his head. 

They're just about getting into Hartnell's sojourn in Tasmania when there's a call to gather. Hartnell leaves his lion on the table and they move with the men to listen. Crozier looks better than Tozer had seen him last, the curl of his lip at the whipping; it has been weeks since any of them have seen him, Little his proxy for most part. "Let us speak plainly," he says. And speaks of home and the sun. 

Home; the grass; the lakes; buildings and trees. Crozier tells them they will walk there, as some had with the _Victory_ near twenty years ago. How will they move Heather? What if the creature should attack – are his men to play at sacrifice once more? Hartnell next to him is nodding. Of course they would follow, Tozer thinks, not without a flash of irritation. He quells it soon enough; better action than sitting silent here. 

A pause and a murmur. Tozer turns around to find the Lady Silence, pale-faced and blood-drenched, stumbling toward them. Hartnell pulls him away as Goodsir rushes forth to catch her. They have no arms on them, everything being left with the watch aboard. If it were to come through now – 

"Stop him," Crozier calls all of a sudden, and Tozer tenses that it is the beast – no, it's Stanley, the queerest look across his countenance, the flame to his chest – and he is burning, burning. More men now are shouting. Fire behind the flap through which Fitzjames looks. Tozer lurches towards the tent whence they came and pulls the canvas back to the heat and light of more. "Get back!" he shouts, clearing a circle between the men and the fire, though it must soon spread.

Heather. They should never have brought him. He catches hold of Armitage and they beat around the fire toward the tables, where Heather stands still. Tozer seizes him under the arms, Armitage takes a hold of the legs, the task accomplished only by the burst of strength that danger sometimes induces. Flames lick hungrily at the lion's head, reducing it to cinder and ash; that there should be things burning in the Arctic is most incongruous a sight.

Then they are pressed against the wall in a wave, more force than human. If Armitage had held on at the start he is lost now, and Tozer sees none of his own men to call to for help. Heather is so heavy in his hands. He pulls up, he pulls; they are pushing against him; where are they going?; please, please. No, no, no. Heather. William. Christ. No no no.

More faces and hands and legs. No. No. Does he say this aloud? He can only hear it in his head and in the pounding of his heart, like a drum, like a whip on skin. No no no no no. He can barely keep Heather's head afloat. Like drowning in the ocean. You're crushing him! The waves crashing about them, sucking Heather's legs into a dense and dark whirlpool. Don't crush him! The shine of Heather's uncovered brain so close to his face he could place a kiss to it. Please, please! You're crushing him! 

William aboard the _Regent_ laughing at the abysmal drills of the new recruits; William so drunk in the Lamb & Flag that he had begged to have his belly shaved; William pulling him out of the way against the Carlists; William digging his bare feet into the beaches of San Sebastian, shoes pulled off, a little boy's delight. 

He sinks to his knees. Had he held Heather at all? He has gone from his hands, and it all seems nothing more than a dream. The crushing weight of the ocean rushes about him. He hears a shout, his name, perhaps, arms encircling him. Heather under the waves. He bids him surface; orders him; waits for his face to break the water. William, move, damn you. That marching through the fog, left-right-left. The bergs are on fire. It can't be but a dream. 

*

"Solomon," says Heather. 

No. He opens his eyes. Not Heather but Hartnell, peering down at him, a hand to Tozer's forehead combing back his hair. All lies quiet. Pale flecks of sunlight set upon them, the first of the year. He's lying on his back and sits now up, looking around for Heather. Coal-black wood curls before him; to the side, bodies are lined up like matches. 

"There's a lot gone." Hartnell has caught his gaze. "At least ten men I pulled out, and Doctor Peddie and MacDonald atop Stanley."

"Where is he?" Tozer asks.

He lies with the rest, his eyes closed now for good. Tozer takes his hand as he had long ago and squeezes it. Once. Twice.

*

It is hard, then, to care, or to make such an effort as he once had. What comes of it? Only darkness. Eight of thirteen left. More rifles left than men to use them. And to leave an emplaced position would be as good as to present themselves to the creature, to allow it to pick them off as it so pleased. But it is hard to care for such things.

Hartnell tries his best. One of the first affected by death he now seems to have stepped past it, and it's the cheer in his outlook stops many on _Terror_ from sinking yet lower. Where once it was Tozer who had seen to comfort him the roles are now reversed. "We went that way with Lieutenant Gore," he says to Tozer, "and you'll be able to see what's coming for miles. Besides, I've all the faith in the best shot there is."

All the same. He cannot shake Heather, nor can he shake misgivings in a command that has done nowt for their safety but to endanger it. He tells Hartnell nothing of this, knowing it'll only drive a wedge between them, and he'll not lose the lad too.

They make ready the boats. Tozer has the men drill their shooting for what's to come. It'll be a different thing altogether, staring down flesh and teeth, and they had better be prepared if they cannot be brave. 

February to March to April. He forgets Hartnell's birthday; so does Hartnell. The boats fill up with food and whatever else seamen deem necessary for an eight-hundred mile trek, though Tozer cannot say much for their priorities. What use tables and cutlery in a march for survival? Will they fight the creature off with forks? 

He is here only to put his life on the line, so he holds his tongue. Others loosen theirs. There are murmurs aplenty, if one should only listen for it, and tasked to guard this boat listening is all that Tozer has to do. 

Gibson who is worried too about the lack of cover and the emptiness of a promise made a year ago. A smaller group would do better, it's true. They'd do well to travel light and the main group would be distraction enough for the creature. And he could get his men out of this alive. Could get Hartnell out of this alive. 

"It would be better to wait," he says, "until the larger group hauls all the supplies to solid ground." 

"It would, yes," Hickey says, his brow creased, and marks that others friendly to this cause should be found. Would it be mutiny? Only if there were anything to mutiny against, only if such a decision were not necessary for survival. Had they not made themselves targets Heather would still be here. 

He presses his lips together and looks at Hickey, who watches him with a smile. 

*

And so they leave. Tozer looks back only once, the ships easily sighted as dark blights against the field of white. He wonders if he should ever see them again. He imagines them as ghosts, waiting only for the ice to let up; and they would then see both at the mouth of the river to which they are headed, masts proud, come to take them home. 

*

"Here, Morfin." He gestures at the sheaf of ice some ways above them. "What say we have a look there and then head back." They're near enough Little's camp that they might be able to make out something of it, so Hartnell thinks, and if not then the look of the land might mean something for its readers. _Spinning_ and _ridges_ might have been added to the lad's vocabulary if they mean nowt to Tozer, who still thinks it's just a hell of a lot of ice. 

Morfin agrees readily enough, but lacks in the carrying out of it; he damn near falls and Tozer catches him only by virtue of reflex. "I've got you!" he shouts, and it's a terrible second where it's almost a lie, but he's soon able to get Morfin back on the ledge. "You shouldn't be on any watch you haven't got the bottom for, Morfin!" Where once he'd have thought nothing of it now he's winded from the effort, and sits on his knees catching his breath. 

He'll not lose another man on his watch, sailor or Marine, not if he can help it, and not for the other's folly. Morfin's been plenty with Goodsir and ought to be resting, and he tells him so – 

Morfin is entirely still. Tozer looks past him toward the ground and cannot find it in himself to speak. 

"Jesus," says Morfin. "Jesus, Tozer."

It's a job descending, something having seized Morfin such that Tozer must help him slowly down; he says nothing ere they return to camp, and still nothing through the report to the captains. "Oh, good Christ," says Crozier. They wind back through the ice. Perchance it might be one of Little's sledges diverted from the main group, but it seems improbable, and Tozer thinks he has an inkling of who they might really be. His heart drops all the more for it.

"Our sweep this morning was further out than yesterday's dog watches," he says by way of explanation, "or Morfin here would never have seen it." The erstwhile discoverer is lagging at the rear, hardly willing to look upon the scene again; for this Tozer cannot blame him. It's a gruesome sight. The upturned sledge, the heads, their eyes closed and skin blackened as if burnt. They've been here too long to be any men of Little's, and Crozier confirms the worst.

So they will have no rescue. Gibson right, and hope fading with every next step taken. Healey's and Reed's heads must sit amongst the others. 

"Who else has seen this, or knows?" asks Crozier.

"Just us four now, sir." 

Crozier considers.

"On pain of a full court martial, no one is to hear of this until such time as Captain Fitzjames and myself decide to share it with the men."

It's unsurprising they should choose to keep it quiet; the men would mutiny sooner than later if they knew no salvation was to come to them. And better they learn it from the captains than from whisperings and hearsay. But it sits not right with him, that threat. Or the thought that they might keep it with them to the grave. It wouldn't be right what letting men die with a lie in their hearts. 

"Yes, sir," is all he says. There's nowt else for it. The journey back is much as the first, all of the men silent, knowing not what to say. 

*

The camp Little has picked for them is nothing more than flat land and shale. Tozer surveys it with dislike, seeing nothing that would check the creature's advance or offer natural cover. And he is only eight men strong; eight rifles against something that could suffer a cannon and yet live is foolhardy at best.

He dwells on the problem a little. To ask for more armed would be the obvious solution, but that it might be turned to advantage – they are, after all, on solid ground, and the chance would be taken better with guns on their side. 

"We might try," Hickey says, when he mentions this. "I suspect if Crozier hears the names he might not give it, but he may yet leave it to your discretion."

Hickey is right – he seems to be right quite often about many things. Tozer puts in other names to obscure any intent, but the moment he mentions Hickey's the game is up. No men. And worse, no rifles. They are nothing more than sitting ducks. All the more they must leave, as quick as they can.

"We still need to gather more men." Hickey, later, pokes at the flame around which they are gathered. "A Lieutenant, if we can. That would give us legitimacy when we reach the fort. And we'll need Mr. Goodsir." 

"He'll not come of his own accord," Armitage says. Hickey tilts his head.

"We'll find a way." 

The bell sounds. Tozer moves to relieve Pilkington, who gives him a nod as he goes. That's another one who would come. He would have to seek out the rest, and he's not asked Hartnell, because he knows what he'll say, and does not want to hear it. Absently he runs his fingers along the dirty bandage that still encircles his hand, though the wound had long since healed. 

Some noise from within the camp. It can't be an attack, or the alarm would have been sounded. He pricks his ears and looks out to the darkness surrounding them; Pearson to his right ought to be able to cover his section well enough, at least for a few minutes while he sees what goes on.

There's Morfin with a rifle. How had he got a hold of it? Tozer comes quietly up from behind Fitzjames, presses himself against the canvas of a tent to remain unseen. Across the gap between tents he sees the girl, Lady Silence, watching him. She makes no other move beyond that turn of the head.

Crozier is speaking. Tozer comes along the edge of the tent and ducks into one, as careful as he can, for any sudden jerk might draw Morfin's attention. Now the situation is made clear; Morfin wishing for death, Crozier unwilling to give it. He wonders that Morfin might have done this had this morning's discovery not been made. Had he not asked him to climb. Had he not asked Sir John to stay.

He sees what Morfin intends to do perhaps even before Morfin himself knows. That shot is wayward, his own is true, and surely Morfin could have felt no pain from it. Crozier looks at him as if he has only just now noticed his existence. Some unspoken thought passes through him, Tozer unable to discern its nature; the clear he is given in any case feels as if it comes from a distance. He returns the nod, slowly. 

By the firelight he can see how Morfin has been hit, the long, thin rake of his wasted body twisted on the ground. Something foul chokes his throat. The man that only this morning he had saved, that he had sworn not to lose. Never, in fourteen years, has he shot one of his own. 

But no – not his own. The seamen cluster around Morfin, now; Goodsir attentive, Hartnell beside him, Crozier arranging for burial. No more word spoken to Tozer, no thanks from Fitzjames or heed paid from the rest. He slips away as he had come, only the Lady Silence watching him return to his post. Pearson reports all clear. 

There they remain, red-coated conscripts. Good only for dealing with what no one else would.

"Sergeant." 

It's Hickey. He puts his hand to Tozer's cheek and bids him hush, like a child; Tozer realises then his breathing is still ragged. "You did the right thing," Hickey is saying. "The hard thing, but the right thing." He sweeps Tozer's hair, damp with sweat, back around his ear. "That's what Marines do, don't they? Though they receive no thanks for it." 

No thanks at all. Tozer bites back the thought of Hartnell going to Goodsir, sparing him not so much as a glance. But Hickey is here. Hickey with calmness in his voice, who can see how important the Marines are, who knows he needs them if he's to put his plan in action. Who needs _him_.

"You put the tobacco in my hammock," Hickey says. 

"Yes." 

Compassion, as this is. Like for like. 

He follows Hickey back to his tent and takes the proffered cigarette with shaking fingers. And he relates what had happened this morning, though he knows he ought not to. He must tell someone; must offer an explanation for Morfin's state, must justify why he did what he did. "Yes," says Hickey. "I know." He kisses Tozer. "You know everything, don't you, Mr. Hickey," Tozer mutters, some part of his spirit revived, but Hickey ignores the bait and reaches instead for the buttons of his shirt.

And Tozer lets him, knowing that from here there is no going back.

*

Hickey tells him things, in exchange, this new arrangement. That he had seen a resignation letter from Crozier whilst caulking, inadvertently; that Crozier would have left all of them to save his own skin had Sir John not died; that there's trouble with the cans; what exactly, Hickey knows not, but he's seen and heard things both. Tozer feels once again as if his eyes are being pried open.

So they are to be poisoned by the very food they eat. More secrets and more lies. Hardly a point to it, either. If they are to be condemned they ought to have the privilege of knowing their doom. "And there'll not be enough to feed us all," Hickey says. He toes a bag towards Tozer, a substantial-looking bag, and a smell about it not unfamiliar. He looks; but it's meat, raw meat, fresh meat. 

"Where did you get this?" he asks, struck otherwise dumb, for he's not seen anything of that sort since Christmas last. Hickey says that Neptune had dashed his leg on the rocks, the poor beast, and he'd had to put him out of his misery.

If Tozer's not seen a rock around large enough for Neptune to break a leg on, he says nowt; the thought of meat so available to him tempts hunger more than sense. Hickey watches his face slyly.

"There are too many men to share in this. We should leave, soon as we can." 

"We've reached solid ground," he says in reply. They could make ready a sledge anytime, leave under cover of darkness. His men would be on watch in any case. 

"Yes." Hickey looks out the tent. "We have."

*

Word comes before next watch from Wilkes, who had come to make his report and heard other things besides. Lieutenant Jospon? A steward? Armitage would have been a better choice, at that. His fault that he had not been Crozier's.

Darkness gathering, like a storm. In black thoughts and on heavy brow. Des Voeux's face pulled tighter than usual. Hodgson, when they get him, attempting to hide fear behind outrage. That Hickey tells Hodsgon of Fairholme rankles some with Tozer, who has no wish for a trumped-up court martial should Hodgson be cowardly enough to tell the captain, but the look on his face near makes up for it. 

Survival, says Hickey, is a nasty piece of business. So it is. So they'll trade in it yet.

His turn on the watch, whilst a scouting party is rustled up and sent out. Watching them leave feels both the same and entirely different to when they had first sent Gore off nearly a year hence. The shadows, himself. So intent is he on the figures fading into the distance that Hartnell must say _Sergeant_ a second time ere he registers it.

"Tom," he says. They'd not spoken since they'd left the ships, due more to Tozer's avoidance than Hartnell's negligence. The plan sits in his stomach as would a stone. 

"I looked for you last night." Hartnell's gaze is searching. "Wanted to see if you were all right." 

Of course he would. The stone grows ever heavier; he looks down. "I don't need a nanny." 

"And I don't need a fight," Hartnell replies promptly. "There something the matter?"

"Nah." Tozer shifts the strap of his rifle. "You took Morfin out this morning?" 

"Yes, with Lieutenant Hodgson. Poor sod." 

"Morfin or Hodgson?"

Hartnell obliges him with a laugh and Tozer raises his head in time to catch it. The lad's hair has gotten out of hand but so has everyone's; in all other respects he's much the same, stubborn and spirited, grown old too fast, affixing Tozer with those sad, serious eyes.

"I see you're getting to know Mr. Hickey better these days."

"What of it?"

"Just I've been there, is all." Hartnell looks out over the rocks yonder where the men had gone. "He's very good at telling you what you need to hear, is Mr. Hickey." 

Tozer colours. He likes not being seen through so easily, even if Hartnell has reason to know him better than most. "I'm not listening to anyone, Tom," he retorts. "I can make up my own mind." 

"Is it still your own?" 

Now a cloud has settled over Hartnell's face, and his edges are creased with what Tozer presumes is dislike though cannot entirely discern. "I thought I was doing the right thing," he continues, "bringing Lady Silence to the ship. I thought it because I had been made to think it. You've got to see, Sol – "

"Why should I listen to you over Hickey?" Tozer cuts in. "If I'm to listen to anyone at all? Whatever his previous failings the points he makes are sound enough. We're too many men to make the journey. We've neither enough food nor arms."

"We'll be armed as needed," Hartnell says. "And the captain and Mr. Blanky can talk native, that might help for food."

Tozer looks dully at him. "Who's being made to think now, Mr. Hartnell?" 

He'll not come with them; Tozer knows that for certain now. The hurt in his face is proof enough. Would that his confidence were Tozer's also, or that they were led by men in whose honour he could place some measure of trust; that they were in England still; that they had never been born. But there's little use for conjecture, since they can't make a meal of it, and he falls quiet.

It seems also to have shut off the tap of conversation Hartnell had always had open. And it feels as if a chasm has opened between them, deeper and wider than the caves he and his sisters - his - Christ, that he'd grown up with.

At length Hartnell draws a sharp, ragged breath, and reaches his hand out for Tozer's. The same slowness, the same deliberation, the same thumb resting on the same bandage. 

"Captain Crozier asked if you came with us to take Lady Silence. I said no, but he's hardly blind to what goes on."

He'd said no. Tozer has no reply to offer, only silence; Hartnell lets go.

"Watch that you don't do anything stupid, Sergeant," he says. 

Tozer inclines his head at such a fraction that he doubts if it was seen. He listens, without turning, to the footsteps ere they fade. Ah, Tom. Things had been simple once. Now the machinations are too numerous and complex for him to follow. This hurts him not to admit, as with the fact that Hickey makes everything clearer; much the same, he supposes, with Hartnell and his captain. The only difference the paths they have taken. Don't we all want to live?

*

*

Pilkington sights them first, two less than had gone out; and all wild with fright and fury, Christ alive. "Back to your posts," he roars at the Marines, who've come with the rest to gape. Now's hardly the time for shirking – if what Hodgson says is true, as he hears now, they've all the reason to expect an attack. The moment Tozer had so dreaded brought now on by avoidable circumstance. They ought to have left sooner.

He checks the position of each of his men, urging them stand fast and shoot true; any approach to their camp now could come only from the enemy, and he would not risk a moment of hesitation. Then he looks for Little. Damn if he'll speak to Crozier, but surely Little might see reason, or have enough lack of a spine as to be persuaded otherwise.

"We cannot hold a perimeter as wide as we have with eight men alone," he says when he finds him outside the command tent. "A dozen would barely be adequate. Will you not ask the Captain for more arms?" 

There is some satisfaction to be got from seeing in Little's face a tacit agreement, though no promises are made to him. He hangs about a little more, but it seems no answer is forthcoming; so he busies himself instead with the watch. Little finds him in time, grim. 

"Take as many pairs of eyes as you'd like, but no arms are to be given out until such as the captain orders, or if indeed an attack is made." 

Tozer looks about him with meaning. "We'll see nothing in this fog, Lieutenant, till it's too late." 

"Until it comes, we're to hold off." Little shakes his head. "Pick your men, Tozer, but the armoury stays closed."

He'll have no further argument. Tozer nods once, thinking no longer of the camp but the men who will come.

On returning to his own post he passes Hickey, who seems headed out once more with Lieutenant Steward. His countenance is more cheerful than Tozer has ever seen him. "Today may be the day," he calls over, then so lowering his voice that he'd not be heard, "guns."

Today the day, indeed.

For once he is a step ahead of Hickey, a thought in which he takes a touch of pleasure. He is a man of action and action has come upon them. He considers: Armitage will do whatever he says. The fog come in all sudden like will only get worse. There are nerves plenty, Little amongst them, though he tries to hide it. All he requires is Crozier out of the way.

Which providence accomplishes for him, if at the cost of two Marines – he sees just in time Crozier gone with Hickey, and many besides who might have put paid to the plan. Blanky, Jopson, Goodsir. Even Hartnell, who Tozer knows would have stopped him at all costs, short of being tied up or knocked unconscious.

And Tozer loves him for it, since he would have himself done exactly the same; and lets him go for it, since there's nowt more to be done.

*

The speed with which the men succumb to fear impresses even him. Alone the thought of being set upon by savages has chilled their bones; this with the fog and the creature lurking always at the back of their minds is a powerful poison. He has only to say a few words of this to Little, who melts so quickly Tozer wonders that he had resisted to start with.

He leaves Armitage to it. If they could have a gun for each man it would be safest, but it won't be long ere the ruse is caught out either by Fitzjames or the return of Crozier. 

Then come the shots. He hears them from his outpost – a volley and then silence. Armitage comes up presently; "Fitzjames put a stop to it," he reports. "I'd issued twenty. He's gone out now to meet the others come back." 

"Good man." Hickey must be back soon, then. He wonders what plan – to leave now and risk attack by the creature in the fog as Fairholme must have suffered, to leave later and risk the loss of arms or a fight amongst themselves. Either way he has got the guns and so held up his part.

As he rounds the camp he can see figures coming hither through the fog; Hickey, fingers in the pockets of his coat; Pilkington, Daly, who he signals immediately toward the North; Hartnell, who walks straight toward the command tent. No more. Hickey beckons him over. "The rest are still a ways back," he says. "Have you the guns?" 

"Yes."

"Excellent." He reaches for Tozer's arm and pats it lightly, with a surety only he can muster. "I'll speak with the rest and arrange for the sledge. Prepare for the attack, or they may suspect something."

Tozer nods once and moves to deploy the men, now enough in numbers that some strategy might be of use. One Marine and four armed men at each post, to engage in volley fire; two spotters farther out to give them time; himself and the rest to patrol in pairs that they might be dispatched quickly should the need arise. One or two rifles will stop neither beast nor horde, and he's always seen to it that a proper job is done, leaving or no.

If Heather were here he would be far more assured. The men are jumpy, proof enough in the firing on Crozier; they lack some measure of calm that'll not be given by the ones best placed to give it. Hidden in a tent thinking of who else to flog, more like. Tozer drums his fingers against his thigh. Hickey cannot be fast enough.

"Sergeant Tozer!" 

He turns; it's not Hickey's voice. Le Vesconte, who hitherto has said nowt a word to him, now affixing the barrel of his rifle on his person. Blanky beside him, and Hartnell behind, their own guns raised. Tozer makes it a point to shove Pilkington away from him.

"You are under arrest," Le Vesconte says. "For disobeying orders, sedition, and mutiny. Mr. Hartnell, will you take their guns?"

"Disarming the Marines is hardly the cleverest thing to do while we expect an attack," Tozer replies. "Or are the lives of his men no longer the captain's concern?" 

"Save your breath, Sergeant," Blanky speaks up now. "You'll need it." 

Hartnell steps forward. He takes Pilkington's rifle first, who gives it up quietly, looking askance at Tozer as he does; then Hartnell's fingers are around the strap of his rifle, pulling it off his shoulder. He does this a touch kinder than he might have and it goes not unnoticed by Tozer, though he will not oblige the other with a glance. 

"We will escort you to your tent," Le Vesconte resumes, when the business is done, "where you will await the court martial." 

He bares his teeth in a grin, if it could so be called. So they are to have the trumpery after all. "Will you be charging Lieutenant Little too?" he inquires, but is not graced with a reply. Le Vesconte is the one who sits with him in the tent and will not be roused to talking, so Tozer heeds Blanky's advice and says no more.

*

The court martial lives perfectly up to expectations. He is one against five and Little himself is witness for the prosecution, speaking tremulously of how Tozer had deceived him, to which Tozer offers only a raised eyebrow. Deception would hardly have been possible had there been no small part willing to believe, though he keeps this to himself. 

His defence is the same; that he had to act if no one else would; and he calls no witnesses, for he knows that anyone he names would themselves be implicated and condemned. 

For whatever reason Hickey's trial is separate from his; perhaps they're afeared of another mutiny breaking out there and then. Crozier dismisses him for the deliberation, which strikes him as wholly unnecessary, given that the eventual judgement can be of no secret to anyone. Under Jopson's eye he sits and watches the Union Jack fluttering over the tent. Strange, the things they hold on to. It's hardly a lengthy process and no more than ten minutes have passed when Crozier calls him back to read out the verdict and sentence. 

Death by hanging. He would have himself preferred a firing squad, though he supposes that would require the redistribution of the guns. 

The carpenters' hammering as they return to the tent seems too far advanced to have begun after the verdict had reached them. He thinks, lying down looking at the canvas above him, of Heather; wonders what he would have made of this. Called him a fool, most like. Well, William – you can call me a fool in person soon enough.

"Will Hickey be hung as well?" he asks Le Vesconte, who assents to answer with a nod.

"For a worse charge." 

Tozer wonders that they hadn't just thrown all the rulebook at Hickey and called it a day. 

*

When the vanity of the gallows is at last made ready they are brought out to it. Tozer sees that Hickey looks well enough; fine, even, as if condemnation suits him. Murder, says Little. Hickey gives Tozer a sly smirk before he's taken up and Jopson puts the rope around his neck.

Near everyone seems gathered here, even his unarmed Marines. Tozer wonders if anyone at all has been put on watch; the fog has settled dense now, and he can barely make out the faces of those to the far end of his position. If he were the creature he should choose now to attack, half the weapons and twice the group to pick from.

Crozier steps up to speak, much as he had at carnivale; how long ago that feels now. At the mention of Fairholme Tozer cannot but feel compelled to interject – _he'd_ found them, Crozier had chosen to shut him up. What does he care for the breaking of the oath? Punishment's already been dealt; they'll hang a man for doing his job. They'll kill a man for it.

Not two days ago. Morfin had still been alive; rescue had still been possible, for all that they'd known. 

More speech, and the production of a bag which makes Tozer think at first that they have discovered Neptune, which seems ludicrous; then Mr. Diggle pronounces seal meat.

Seal! His stomach jumps at the thought. Seal – "they fed him," says Goodsir. 

Tozer looks up.

"They fed him," says Crozier. 

He glances at Hickey, or the sliver of his face visible to him at such angle; it gives nothing away, only that same smirk. But he'd sympathised, that night, with Tozer's agony over Morfin. "A little girl," Crozier continues, of the Netsilik dead. "No more than six years old." His sisters had once been that age. Small, running around with neither thought nor care. The fields and the lakes in summer, the caves they had often wandered into, that village, its name – 

Something, something; shakes his head to clear it; there must be some explanation. Crozier might be committing that which he now accuses Hickey of; certainly he lies still about the cans. Goodsir is firmly on that side and could easily have been induced to give evidence that would perpetuate a sense of Hickey's guilt. 

Yes. To discredit any last words before they were given, to make up for the need to give them at all.

Yes. The more he thinks the more it seems to him what must have happened. By now Crozier is finishing his little speech, and Hickey looks ready to do battle with him, from the shift in his shoulders and the timbre of his voice; and from his opening volley Tozer is assured, though knows he ought not to have doubted to begin with. 

But look here; his ears, sharp from many a watch, prick up at a curious sound from beyond the fog. "What is that?" Crozier asks. Laughter, save that it resembles no laughter he's ever heard. As he turns he sees Le Vesconte behind him take his rifle up, and hears Jopson behind them doing the same; all their gazes directed now to the figure emerging from the fog; it's Mr. Collins who emerges, though upon his countenance is an expression Tozer has never seen, garish and haunting; and behind him is still more ominous a shadow and sound; a sound about which there can be no mistake. 

At once a burst of noise.

"Damnit, he's right here!" 

"Stagger your fire!"

"Pull back!" 

"Mr. Hickey!"

Yet still that roaring above all. He breaks for it, pausing neither to turn nor undo the rope which binds his hands. Men have scattered everywhere, crawling about like blind ants in the fog. It's the perfect time to make good the escape. Already the rest will have begun to move. There'll be guns still at the armoury and he trusts not their ability to survive without arms, so that's where he heads – Hickey also, next to him, by the looks of it. Armitage just ahead. Here, Tommy – he has with him a knife, and cuts Tozer loose. 

Armitage turns to Hickey next, who shakes his head no and looks instead to the armoury. Ropes they can cut later; with no guns they have no chance. 

Four or five rifles lie on the floor, unsecured, that must have been taken off the Marines. A flash of the old anger pipes through him, a feeling more suited to the man he had once been, and he stifles it with the urgency in Hickey's voice. "Just give me as many as you can," he says as Tozer puts the guns into his hands. "Break the lock off." 

A shot – well-placed – stings the guns and puts them back on the floor whence they came. Hickey is quick to make his escape, Tozer a step behind him startled by the blast. He runs with a gun in each hand, driven less by energy than the pounding in his chest from which there can be no let up till they are out of this. The captain; the monster; too many things to watch for. Christ. From a ways past the tents he hears a scream and steers well clear of the noise.

"Tozer!"

He must keep from laughing. Little's last attempt to stop him could hardly have been called a success, and he cannot see how the man means to do it now; but he humours him nevertheless, should nerves incite the pulling of the trigger. 

"Where are the Marines?" shouts a voice; Little turns his head, as if wanting to give the answer. _Now_ they are in demand, but Tozer has determined to tangle no more.

Edward. Come now, Edward. He cajoles and coaxes, watching his resolve waver as intently as he does Armitage make his approach from behind. 

Short work made of that. "Here," Tozer says, relieving Little of his weapon and handing it to Armitage. "They'll be off soon. I'll catch up."

Armitage looks as if he doubts the veracity of this statement without his person being there to enforce it, but Tozer hurries him on with a look. He has one thing more to do – 

One thing more, but it is not Hartnell he comes across on the ground, suffering the creature ripping out his insides – not Hartnell with whom he makes eye contact, a poor choice of last sight – and were it not terrible enough, there seems then sucked from Mr. Collins something, some _thing_ , to which Tozer can in that moment put no words – 

He takes a step back, another, until he is running. As if he were a frightened little boy looking for his mother, or a rabbit hounded by a dog. It's no question of pride; he knows he runs not only for his life. Always, always, the emptiness of Collins's wide eyes follows. To the sledge they have made ready, through the fog as they start off. And when they are far enough away and paused for the night, it wraps itself as would a blanket around Tozer's shoulders. 

"I saw," he begins to Hickey, who lies beside him. "I saw Mr. Collins killed by the creature."

"Many men have been."

"No. It was – " 

But the words will not come out, though he tries. Hickey presses a kiss to his temple. "Go to sleep, Sol."

What sleep he gets is fitful and restless. He wakes well before anyone else and sits just outside the tent, watching the sun arc ever higher in the sky; and wishes it were dark again, that he might never have seen a soul.

*

Here Hickey begins to disappear.

At first Tozer heeds it not. Now that the machinations have been dispensed with he can put his mind to the proper arrangement of defence and scouting, trusting not any further encounters to chance. They cannot kill this thing. That is plain enough; rather they should not come across it again. He is himself on watch many nights, and if Hickey is often absent from the tent he is too distracted to pay much attention to it.

There remains, also, the thought of Collins. Every night. And from this he must logically proceed to Heather, and the answer to why he had lain there for such a time without so much as a twitch must be plain as day. The first time Tozer makes the connection he almost throws up for it. 

William - those months he had held his hand. Tozer knows he loves too much, and cannot help himself still. 

Yet other things must draw him from these thoughts, and do. Marching and scouting but curious things also. Hickey's courting of Hodgson when no courting remains needed; the small slits in his coat, invisible but for the glare of the sun. 

Except it is not his coat - the length and quality suggest it to be Irving's. And the slits match perfectly the knife Hickey carries, the knife he now retrieves from their tent with a grimness Tozer has not yet seen.

God. Damned fool that he is. A cleverer man than he might have noticed this earlier; Crozier had, he thinks now, and so it must have been seal meat. But there would be an explanation, surely. Hickey is unmatched in those. Had Hartnell not warned him?

_He's very good at telling you what you need to hear._

Golding had said that Hartnell lived yet, and was every day more indispensable to Crozier. Tozer tries not to remember him, the touch of his fingers, the kindness of his eyes. 

"It's too late, Tom," he says aloud. To dissent would only cause trouble in a position as precarious as theirs, and better a thought laid to rest where no advantage stands to be gained. There are orders; he sees them through; they come out of this alive. It would be enough. 

*

Goodsir's accusation of the murder of Gibson brings him no surprise, nor can the threat to Hodgson that forces the doctor's hand. _Stay here, Sergeant_ , and he does, as he has always. 

Outside, he stops Hickey a moment. "Did you?" he asks. Kill all of them, he means; Hickey only smiles at him. 

"Didn't you also, Sergeant?" he asks. "Poor, poor Morfin, who never harmed a soul."

Tozer eats. They all of them do, god help them. He'll not think – he'll not think again – 

*

Then he sees it. They are some months along now from the hanging, but there can be no mistaking that shadow; he has seen it too many times to assume it otherwise. Only a scant few miles from where he and Armitage are stood, and another few miles from Crozier's camp. 

It cannot be fancy that the thing meets his eye. It must be fancy that its features resemble a face, a crude, garish imitation; yet it seems the longer he looks the more of a resemblance he can make out, that soon he gives a shout and stumbles back up the slate, Armitage scrambling behind him.

Collins's eyes; that last, final, aching shudder.

He must talk to Hickey. He must tell him that returning the ships can be the only option. Armitage is vociferous in his agreement, and would have walked past the camp and started immediately had Tozer not stopped him. Tozer would have himself walked past had he not stopped himself.

Amusement, more than fear, seems at first to colour Hickey's voice. "Well, you finally sound frightened, Solomon," says he, with his cigarette and Irving's coat, as if on another planet for all that Tozer can see of him from here.

Once he would have been ashamed of what comes next, but no longer. There can hardly be room for shame in a situation such as this; any man, Cornelius, would be frightened of that which cannot be explained on their terms. The soul. The soul. Had Collins felt anything upon losing it? Had Heather?

Hickey cups his face. With such gentleness as to disarm Tozer entirely, to afford him belief that he will be heard. Yes, he will signal; yes, they will go back. 

Hickey's plan requires now the presence of Crozier, for no reason Tozer is clear on, but he has Manson relay it to Golding anyway; and though Armitage is eager to be off Tozer bids him wait a day at the least. "This needn't be a second mutiny," he says, watching the man stand atop the rocky ledge. "He'll see reason."

Armitage, clearly, does not believe him, though leaves it at that. Tozer cannot himself say with certainty, but his Marine's heart would not take disobeying orders twice over; and in any case he'll not suffer to lose a single man more. 

Not a single man more. It is an aspiration that lasts only until Des Voeux and his men return from their taking Crozier, their faces pale and breath shaky, none daring to meet his eyes. 

*

With no further thought or care he rushes thither, no move made to stop him; Tom; good christ, Tom. There he is laid out on the rocks. Tozer takes the downward slope of the hill so fast he nearly falls, and rights himself out of his stumble to come to a pause next to the body.

For it is just that – however much it looks like Hartnell there is none of his irreverence, or spirit, none of the goodness which had so inhabited him. Tozer sits beside him and takes his hand with his left, combs his hair back with the other. That same scrap of cloth sits around his palm still; the cannon; the sail room.

"Ah, Tom," he says thickly. "I thought I told you to leave the dying to us." 

He has never been much for words, and they choke his throat now. He was to have gotten out of this and lead that life of his own ahead of him yet. He was to have.

If he had only listened; if Hickey had not chosen him of all people; "you were right," he tells Hartnell, as if he could hear him still, "and I'm the more sorry for it, Tom." He can hear Hartnell's voice in his head as he speaks – _oh,_ you're _the more sorry? I'm_ dead _, Sol_ – and suppresses a shaky chuckle.

His voice; his voice. His eyes, those months. Lost to everything but themselves.

They sit there. He sits there, watching the horizon of this damned place, until such time as he determines that Little must be back soon. At length he draws a breath and looks again at Hartnell, the crease of his forehead, taking what consolation he can in that Hartnell's soul is still very much his own.

One thing more. Tozer feels around the hem of Hartnell's jumper and closes his fingers around the tail of the woolen shirt, gently easing it out from underneath. There, in thread as bright red as his own uniform had once been, is _T. H._ , dated a year ere the expedition had set out. He hardly remembers any of it; what port they had left from, whether it had been sunny; who had come to see him off. The faces of his sisters. 

He thinks briefly of taking it, that something of this would be with him, but knows also that he could deserve no such kindness.

"All right," he says instead, and tucks the shirttail back from whence he had disturbed it. He puts his thumb, gently, on Hartnell's mouth; then presses there a kiss also; then he stands and picks his way through the shale back to the camp, where they must be wondering for his absence. 

*

Morning in its slow certitude comes, bringing with it the death of Goodsir; it's Des Voeux discovers him, and Tozer must bear along with Pilkington the weight of the lamb to the slaughter-table. It is a weight that numbs them all, save Hickey. The man sets about carving into Goodsir as he would a pie at a feast, using the same knife that has dispatched Gibson, and Irving, and Tozer supposes Neptune, too. 

Crozier is late to the party, but is left no choice in his joining of it. 

Hickey turns his palms toward the sky as if he were Christ.

As they eat he speaks, this plan of his that involves the captain still hidden but to himself. This inscrutable, unknowable plan. Tozer has heard enough. Across the table Armitage catches his eye, and he nods; through his own folly he has delayed them long enough, has killed them long enough, and if they tarry any longer they'll not make it, boat or no. 

He is still thinking how they will do this when the rifle comes down on his head like a bag of sand.

*

_"Haul!"_ – comes the word – his hair matted with blood, his wrists chained – why are they walking? where are they going? – _"push!"_ – 

He pulls at the chain but the links are tight and he cannot do a thing to them. They have put Crozier, Hodgson, and Golding on the chain also; Armitage and Pilkington ahead, and Hickey he presumes somewhere behind; and they are all of them hauling, though Hickey has still not explained what he intends to do. 

"Cornelius!" he shouts, looking back at the boat. The other men are staggering grimly forward, none inclined to question but only act. Once he would have followed suit, but once too he would have acted willingly. 

No reply is forthcoming. They pull only until Hickey gives the word to halt, and for Pilkington to fire a shot. Which Pilkington does, and which Tozer watches disbelieving. Has he relinquished that much command as to have his own men taken from him as well? 

_"Let me off this chain!"_

Unheard, again; ignored, again, as seems to be his lot. He comes to rest on his haunches. The skin of his wrist is raw from where he'd yanked the cuff.

Hickey's godforsaken plan. He can abide by this no longer – then bloody _tell_ us, Cornelius, for the sake of us all – but Hickey instead says:

"a man named Cornelius Hickey told me this expedition was a year in the Polar Sea."

Good fucking Christ. Bile rises up in Tozer's throat that he forces down, or he'll end up like Manson. Who had he pledged himself, all of himself to - but it matters not, now, he supposes. The man in the boat has gone somewhere now that none of them can follow. Not home, certainly. He knows here that none of them will ever go home again.

The creature must now be on its way.

Crozier catches his eye.

Yes. Sir.

He is a man of action, and action has come upon them. 

_Never met a man with his soul ate out,_ says the man in the boat, but Tozer has. He has, and he'll not see it again. "Magnus," he calls, "Mr. Des Voeux, come forward to the others. Stagger your position on a line."

All his mistakes, his blind trust, will be made up for here on this hill, in this moment. "Tommy, give me your gun," he begs of Armitage, "I'm the best shot here!" But Armitage, instead, levels the gun at Hickey – 

What happens, then? Armitage, Manson, Pilkington. "It's before me," screams the boy, ere the monster tossing him up like a ragdoll; sound off at the back; the damn chain; the keys. "Pull it back!" Crozier shouts, and Hodgson almost at Armitage's body, poor old Tommy; a little more, a little more. Diggle down. If he could get at a bloody gun instead of sitting here useless –

"Be still! _Stop moving!_ " 

Hodgson gone; he fumbles at the chain, Crozier yanking him back; don't run, Golding, don't bloody run. Couldn't be out of his teens, scrabbling under the boat with a desperation no one civilised would recognise. _No no no no no._ He has heard that before.

Then it is the two of them, and the chain unlinked from the boat; the force sends them both to the ground, where sharp shale cuts into Tozer's cheeks. He groans, staggering to his feet no easy task. Something sits wrong in his stomach. He blinks and peers around, trying to fix his vision, which slips in and out of focus.

There must be a rifle or the key somewhere. Dark spots tinge the ground ere men have fallen; "there," he exclaims and seizes upon the keys. They have precious little time before the creature is done with whoever it is devouring. Quickly. Quick. His fingers slip against the metal. 

Crozier has got Armitage's shotgun from him. "Captain," Tozer says, the word apology and acknowledgement both. A sailor, a Marine, an imposter – he catches the gun and throws Crozier the key. On this hill. In this moment.

He takes a moment to steady himself and ready his thoughts. The creature is right before him, gorging on what must be poor Manson; it is so huge, so foul that he surely cannot miss, but also cannot with a bullet take it down. The first time he had seen it there had been but a shadow.

The fog, here; the dream and the march. 

With fourteen years' practice he brings the shotgun up snug against his shoulder, his bandaged hand tight around the grip. Look at this stupid thing I'm doing, Tom. He draws in a breath and marches forward. Left-right-left. On this hill. In this moment. He pulls the trigger and closes his eyes; one shot, a true shot, the best shot there is; and then sees his sisters at last. 

*

**Author's Note:**

> traditional rachnotes:  
> \- i 4got they would've been stuck in [beechey!ice](https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%2520fact%2520file/History/antarctic_ships/Franklin-north-west-passage-timeline.php)  
> \- discorg told me sol had 6 sisters so i ran w it  
> \- heather wasn't on the lead parties but i do what i want  
> \- [watch system](https://www.historicnavalfiction.com/general-hnf-info/naval-facts/the-watch-system)  
> \- Pulled all randos off the manifest  
> \- [Marines timeline](http://www.royal-marines.net/1825-1849.html)  
> \- im so bad at counting the marines. there are so many marines. help ([this](https://starbuck.tumblr.com/post/622192764617146368/does-he-well-the-marine-that-little-emphatically) helped ID some of em)  
> \- icr why i was looking up hammocks but u can have the references since i did [x](https://www.portandterminal.com/a-brief-history-of-the-naval-hammock/) [x](https://www.britishtars.com/2018/01/hammocks-bedding-and-where-they-slept.html?m=1)  
> \- tart listening to tozerant, or as i've saved it, [agenda 1](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c7e2cc6f22c2777a6538293e0993ea96/6ff0adf4419f6e09-a4/s640x960/2f04c452ac30fcfc51c5c1079c116c56d0ae6f17.jpg)  
> \- [v useful victorian dictionary](https://laissezferre.tumblr.com/post/618637365247868928/255-victorian-slang-words-and-phrases-i-tried-to)  
> \- the [hms prince regent](https://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=34)  
> \- i made the ankle thing up i was tryna figure out why they weren't on deck when blanky was attacked lel  
> \- don't know if there be nine [yards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yard_\(sailing\)) on a ship ayy  
> \- [agenda 2](https://64.media.tumblr.com/10d19faacc7591d6263d39a5743ea6a8/6ff0adf4419f6e09-c2/s640x960/22b66f8439c727f68db68308283f439631060a6d.jpg)  
> \- me getting paranoid about how advanced wound care was and going overboard on the references: [x](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/950) [x](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk/2010/sep/30/navy-surgeons-19th-century-journals) [x](https://www.redcross.ca/blog/2014/2/first-aid-for-a-common-canadian-sticky-situation) [x](http://www.piratesurgeon.com/pages/surgeon_pages/simple_wounds3.html)  
> \- thoughts: did croz/gang ever, like, tell the rest it was called tuunbaq??  
> \- [agenda 3](https://64.media.tumblr.com/5b080bd25a0663d49f4b6340c77074f2/6ff0adf4419f6e09-dc/s500x750/4c70c7a03ae22df8eedff04dcfe85496c5093752.jpg) (look..tart was stood next to toze so i claim that hand)  
> \- [ye old pubs](https://www.timeout.com/london/bars-and-pubs/londons-best-historic-pubs)  
> \- (drunken sailor ref)  
> \- I checked when matches were invented ([1826](http://www.historyofmatches.com/))  
> \- hickey/toze is not my thing so idk if i did em justice but ey!  
> \- [THE DATES IN 7-8 ARE MY ENEMY!!!](https://64.media.tumblr.com/37da5ba8aefa237075464bc8a44d47fa/6ff0adf4419f6e09-f0/s500x750/1eb47382637f5c3170d8e14f5a3e20cc2f5eb678.png)  
> \- [volley fire](https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2016/09/23/fire-by-volley-european-musketry-at-war/)  
> \- [this brill post](https://tautline-hitch.tumblr.com/post/183340963031/ive-got-a-question-that-id-love-to-pose-to-you) for courtmartial - i separated em bc it's the only way i could figure toze eyes emoji-ing hickey later  
> \- Shit I've googled: 'when was adrenaline discovered' (1895)  
> \- [polar night](https://www.spitsbergen-svalbard.com/spitsbergen-information/midnight-sun-polar-night.html)  
> \- (Toze isn't in the shot of men when croz is brought back, js)  
> \- didn't end up mentioning trousers but [have the ref](https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/nu/epaveswrecks/culture/histoire-history/expedition/habit-clothing) anw  
> \- me worrying if [cuffs](https://unitedlocksmith.net/blog/the-history-of-handcuffs) are anachronisms  
> \- i spent way too long looking up guns so have [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTerror/comments/8e3b2o/the_ships_armouries/); also fairly sure the gun tozer carries in ep 8 is a Springfield 1842??? which makes no sense but u do u sol  
> \- shotguns, hm? [](https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/2529.html) [](https://www.theyorkshiregent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Parts-of-shotgun-1024x366.jpg)
> 
> tks4read <3


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